Happy 4th of July!!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July. I know I sure did, despite the intense heat and exhausted 3.5 year old.   It was 109 degrees at 7:30 last night. Thankfully by the time the fireworks started at 9:45, it had cooled off quite a bit.

The whole day was great.  My mom left her house about 9:30 and arrived at ours at about 4.  While she was traveling, the kids and I went to a friends house for a BBQ and some fun.  We spent a couple of hours enjoying water balloon fights, squirt gun fights, good food and wonderful company.  Then my mom arrived in town and we headed home.   Where we hung out, played in the sprinklers,  and BBQ'd the BEST steak and corn-on-the-cob.   Best ever, if I do say so myself.

At 8:00 we headed over to a local park to watch the fireworks from a distance.  We realized that we arrived super early, so we went to Dutch Bros. for smoothies and coffee. When we got back to the park, we found a perfect spot to sit. We tossed down our blankets and chilled out while waiting to watching the fireworks.    That was most definitely the best part of the evening.  My mom, my children and me sitting on a blanket in a park playing and laughing and having more fun than we have had in a long time.   We sat there and watched Samuel run around in circles around the blanket singing a song about how his shirt glowed in the dark.  We took tons of pictures, some of which are below.  By the time the fireworks actually started, it was way past Samuel's bedtime and he was more than ready to go home and sleep.  But I held him and convinced him we would go home soon. He wasn't interested in watching the fireworks, so he lay in my arms as I watched them and rocked him.   Cias turned some music on my phone and was listening to it as he sat with Mima and watched the fireworks.

When the fireworks were over, we headed back to the truck.  As we walked up, Mima told Samuel to turn on the truck lights.  I told him to use his Jedi powers to turn the lights on.  So he put his hands up, wiggled his fingers, and the truck headlights magically came on!  He is now convinced he has Jedi powers and can always turn on the truck lights.  I really wish I had power locks in my car so I could that with him too.  He was so excited.

I wish I could think of the words to express how wonderful last night was. I hope the pictures can express them instead.